second throw

is finished

and a few more which I have made for our houshold. They are already being used in children’s bedrooms and I am curious what changes they will go through in such busy places where most is done on the floor (thinking glue, scissors, cellotape…)

Icelandic on the left, curly Teeswater on the right.

Wishing you a cozy weekend!

throws

I have been felting throws. It’s hard work, rather dirty and mostly on my knees, but rewarding. This is the first one

and the detail of the second one, still drying. Both are made of variety of British fleeces, except a small amount of Drente Heath which is a wool from a Dutch sheep breed.

shadows

This is the wall against which I usually take pictures. The shadows are so strong – the sun is still very low but at least it’s shinning. There is as much shaddows as the sun, it just depends which way we are looking… doesn’t it?

I didn’t felt over the holidays but I was sewing, for us. This is the last piece; the red coat for the younger one, before she grows out of bright colors as they usually do.

 

(on) creativity

The other day I came across the article Top artists reveal how to find creative inspiration in the UK edition of The Guardian. A lot of good advice, these are my favorites at the moment:

• Don’t wait for a good idea to come to you. Start by realising an average idea – no one has to see it. If I hadn’t made the works I’m ashamed of, the ones I’m proud of wouldn’t exist. (Polly Morgan, artist)
• Write backwards. Start from the feeling you want the audience to have at the end and then ask “How might that happen?” continually, until you have a beginning. (Lucy Prebble, playwright)
• It doesn’t always have to make sense. (Susan Philipsz, artist)

Wishing you a happy, healthy and a creative New Year!

winter table decoration

one glass bowl from a thrift shop

white or blue tack + candle

sand, I used  bird’s sand from a pet store

white stones from the beach + found pinecones

I like the color combination, for a change, with no green or red. Natural whites and browns are so beautiful.

The only drawback is that to replace a candle I need to empty the bowl each time the candle burns down; I think I will use three instead, burning one at a time.

handmade gifts

“A bedside table with a bunny on it” is one of many items on our younger one’s Christmas wish list. Later on we are instructed – the bunny doesn’t need to be a real pet, thank you very much. A bit of googling – and I am making this one.

 It’s both amuzing and delightful to read their letters to Santa. The older one was writing and writing until she realized it’s getting a bit confusing. Back she goes, adding little notes where to source what and prioritizing with one, two or three stars. The wee one rewrote neatly titles of what must be most of 99 fairies books series, without capital letters or fullstops. Santa doesn’t know where one title starts and the other ends and he is certainly going to need glasses…

paper boxes

… so “tomorrow” I was making presents and paper boxes for some of them. I usually use thicker magazine paper, maps and callendars but I run out of the stock so decided to recycle a roll of a wallpaper. It’s plain white with a nice texture and was easy to work with. It is easy to fold yet the folds are not very visible once the box is finished. Besides, the roll width enables to make a box up to cca 20 cm wide!

You can find instructions on making paper boxes here.

winter idyll

Today we woke up into this winter idyll. I had hopes and plans to go back to my sketchbook and possibly even some fibre after several weeks of ‘nest’ hunting  business. Instead I was shovelling the snow and hunting for snow boots. But it’s been beautiful – feather light snow covering every twig, the sun and heavy snow clouds chasing each other on the sky. And that special kind of serenity when the snow falls.

so maybe tomorrow…

more of cotinus

There has been very little time for anything felt or dye related recently, but I have managed to machine wash and iron part of what I dyed/printed in the summer and it’s ready now to give or put on the ‘shop shelves’. Again, these natural fibres, mainly silk chiffon, have been marked with cotinus leaves, with the exception of theone on far left where I combined cotinus with the local eucalyptus.

Little Miss Pattern

few details of my latest natural dyeing and printing

‘between you and me’

‘deep sea world’

‘fishy feelings’

‘ghost of the dyeing pot’